dreamingpixels | (no subject)

Maybe it's me being sick, maybe it's because I had a rough day which ended with a student weeping because he had 20 minutes of time out during recess, or maybe it's the depression talking, but I'm seriously wondering if I'm cut out to be a teacher.

Oh, I handled weepy kid pretty well- sure, he kept crying, but I didn't lose it, and that's the important thing, I guess.

But I'm one of the least organized people on the planet. I'm also pretty awkward around kids. I'm irresponsible. I would love nothing better than to just curl up in bed and sleep until 8, read a book all day, and have that be my day.

I had the first of four "triad" meetings, where I sit down with my supervisor and my mentor teacher and we talk about "how I'm doing", and rate things on a 0-3 scale, 0 being "needs work" and 3 being the level of a master teacher.

Well, apparently I'm a master teacher when it comes to dressing myself professionally. Other than that, I'm no better than a student fresh out of their 100 hour observation period. I've been at this for four weeks, and teaching for half the day for two. And my mentor teacher and my supervisor said I've come a long way from where I was when I started, which leads me to believe I was an absolute wreck when I came in. A well dressed wreck, but a wreck nonetheless.

I have maturity issues. I need to learn to shut up when others are talking. I need to be less "calm and soothing" when in front of the class. I need to be more of a disciplinarian. I need to plan better. I need to be more aware of what every student in the class is doing. I need to vary my lessons more. I need to do this that and the other thing. I need to be someone entirely different.

I think I just wasted a lot of money on an education that may end up getting no use at all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

God yeah, sometimes they pick the worst people to handle new teachers on the school end (or they volunteer). There was once a master teacher in my first school who made even the vets cry with how critical she was.

Honestly, sometimes you'll cry because you're stressed about what you're doing and everything that is conveniently going badly at home simultaneously; and sometimes you'll be having a great week and your teacher will decide you need just one last go-around before the weekend so you can spend the next two days re-thinking every interaction you've ever had. I've had to come around to the idea that crying isn't a sign of weakness, because otherwise I don't think I would have come back after some of those weekends.

Those kinds of perfect storms of suck never get any easier, either.

I think part of it is that I'm a little sensitive, and while my mentor teacher realizes this, I think she thinks I'm more sensitive than I am sometimes. She tends to try and say things as nicely as she can, when I wish she'd just speak her mind. Other times, she's utterly blunt, and I'm sitting there biting the inside of my cheek and trying not to cry.

And I'm horrid at planning. There's no way around that.

That's why I have become a staunch advocate of finding someone who can help you who you can also bitch at.

You'll get better at planning with practice! It took me the better part of a year to really figure out how to plan things that didn't occasionally suck.

Your Master Teacher is totally going to hone in on any weakness you have and exploit it. In part, she wants to make sure that you're not going to flake after a rough day or two, and in another sense, it's schadenfreude. Her Master Teacher did the same thing, so she latches onto any similar patterns she sees in you.

One of my MTs was huge on having written examples of everything and lesson plans prepared at least a week in advance for everything, while the other hasn't really used paperwork in his 30+ years of being an educator. I used the Madeline Hunter format for my lesson plans - the educational theorist, not the romance novelist, by the by. The big weakness is that it doesn't offer you any opportunity for reflection, which my MTs also harped on. The good news is that it gets you thinking about everything else, like time management, materials, how you're going to model and check for understanding, etc. I recommend something that you can come back to if you're having a hard time planning ahead with stuff.